3 Simple Things Successful Married Couples Do

Plenty of married couples are thriving and doing great. So what’s their secret? What are these married couples doing well that others are missing? Most would agree that we all desire happy and meaningful relationships with our spouses. Great relationships enrich our lives, feel good and enhance our well-being. Relationships affect our physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. We also know from research that good quality relationships predict better health, stronger recovery from illness and longer life-spans.

Here are 3 Things Successful Married Couples Do

They Make Listening to Their Spouse a Priority: When couples are just starting out finding time to connect and listen comes rather easy. We don’t have all the distractions that come later. As life gets full with careers, raising children and other demands it becomes increasingly difficult to have good quality time together. One of the first persons in many marriages who suffer from not having a listening ear is our spouse.

Successful married couples are intentional about carving out time to listen to their spouse’s thoughts and feelings. They ask meaningful questions:

• What is stressful for you?
• What are your concerns?
• What are your fears?
• What are your longings?
• What are your dreams?

Our spouse needs a place to go to share their thoughts and ideas. Are you providing a safe place where your partner can turn? When you allow your spouse the space to speak and be heard you are comforting them. We all need this sort of comforting in life. We need to know someone is available, present and listening.

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. ~James 1:19

They Connect Emotionally with Their Spouse: Making sure that we stay attuned and connected to our spouse is important. God created us this way. First to be connected with Him and then to each other. Our relationship with our spouse should be the most cherished relationship we have besides our relationship with God. When we get too busy it is easy to get disconnected from our spouse. Quite often it slowly happens, the disconnect creeping up on us without notice. Before we recognize what is happening we begin to lose touch with our spouse’s inner world.

Drs. John and Julie Gottman discuss the importance building love maps in our relationships. We do this by knowing our spouse’s psychological worlds well enough to map them out. We all have different needs, values, experiences, desires, and priorities. Keeping track of your spouse’s internal world is essential to a healthy marriage. Making sure that we are regularly checking in, connecting on a deep emotional level is vital for the success of married couple.

They Have Fun with Their Spouse: One of the easiest, yet often neglected, things we can do with our spouse is having fun. Life gets busy for all of us, crowding out time to have fun together. When we recreate and play together it is refreshing and invigorating to our relationships. It helps us to unwind and just have some down time enjoying one another. It is great for our mental health and wellbeing.

If you have gotten out of the habit of having fun together try adding some fun. Ask your spouse to come up with a list of ideas. Then plan something and go have some fun together.